FBI agent presents dramatic testimony in trial of Newburgh 4

MANHATTAN — FBI Special Agent Robert Fuller hefted a Stinger missile onto his shoulder on Wednesday in front of the jury that will decide the fate of the Newburgh Four.

BY DOYLE MURPHY

MANHATTAN — FBI Special Agent Robert Fuller hefted a Stinger missile onto his shoulder on Wednesday in front of the jury that will decide the fate of the Newburgh Four.

"This is the firing position," Fuller explained.

It was the same missile — the FBI built it to look real but not fire — the defendants schlepped from a warehouse in Stamford, Conn., to the Guardian Storage facility in New Windsor last year.

Prosecutors say James Cromitie, David Williams, Laguerre Payen and Onta Williams of Newburgh planned to use the missile and another just like it to shoot down military planes at Stewart Air National Guard Base after planting bombs in front of a synagogue and Jewish center in the Bronx in May 2009.

Prosecutors brought the fake bombs as well and set them with a thud on the courtroom floor.

Each of the nearly 50-pound, real-looking explosives was packed in a duffel bag with 30 bars of inert C-4 and a sleeve of 500 ball bearings.

Fuller testified the FBI had secretly videotaped the defendants as an informant named Shahed Hussain taught them to how to operate the fake weapons.

They also taped them practicing with the C-4 in a bungalow the FBI rented on Shipp Street in Newburgh.

In between, the FBI secretly stashed the replica missiles and bombs at its field office in Goshen, where Fuller worked as a member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Under cross-examination by Payen's attorney, Mark Gombiner, Fuller said it was the FBI, not the defendants, who decided on the design specifications, including the ball bearings, of the fake weapons.

"You came up with that idea because you thought it would make for a more dramatic courtroom presentation, right?" Gombiner asked.

"That's not correct," Fuller replied.

Defense attorneys spent the afternoon trying to demonstrate that the FBI provided not only the fake weapons but the money, transportation and targets for the plot.

It was part of the defendants' argument that the FBI plugged four hapless men into a scenario written and directed by the government.